Seattle bans straws and utensils made of plastic

Seattle has officially banned restaurants from giving customers plastic straws with their drinks for environmental reasons, becoming the first major U.S. city to do so.

Food service locations that fail to comply with the official ordnance can be fined $250.

The use of Styrofoam packaging in food service was banned in 2009.

Neither are plastic utensils in the latest push to reduce waste and prevent marine plastic pollution. Should a customer ask for one, said straw will have to be not just biodegradable but compostable under Seattle's exacting city-level standards. Nor does any serious research justify targeting straws: The oft-cited figure that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day comes from a survey conducted by a 9-year-old. Businesses that sell food or drinks won't be allowed to offer the plastic items under a rule that went into effect Sunday.

California's Legislature is considering statewide restrictions, but not an outright ban, on single-use plastic straws.

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Greenpeace says 40% of plastics in the ocean are from single-use plastics, KIRO reported.

New York City and Los Angeles are said to be considering a similar ban on non-compostable straws and utensils. The city then required that compostable or recyclable food service items, including plastic straws and utensils, be used beginning in 2010.

Flexible plastic straws for customers who require them for medical reasons are exempt from the ban.

More than 200 restaurants in the city voluntarily adopted the ban past year, stopping millions of straws from entering the waste stream, according to the Lonely Whale Foundation, an environmental group running the "Strawless in Seattle" campaign.

According to the Strawless Ocean campaign, straws can ruin loads of recycling because majority aren't heavy enough to make it through industrial recycling sorters.

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